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going too deep in the squat?

coreyb

New member
Is it possible to go too deep in the squat? I've been having these weird pains in my calves lately and I can't seem to get rid of it. One of my hunches is that I'm going so low in the squat that the weight is shifting too much unto my calves and therefore causing me pain.

I can go a lot deeper in the hole then when I started...and even then I was already a little below parallel...so are there any side effects from going very deep in the whole or what?

any thoughts or comments would be super.

corey.
 
The main side-effect from going deeper in the hole is improved development and more safety for your knees as the load trasnsfers away from them onto your hips. Look at some photos or videos of Olympic lifters and see how deep they go.

Have you been performing stretches for your calves. It's also possible that they're unused to the work you're giving them and having a whinge about it. You might need to back off the workload a little while they recover. Try regular stretching first and see whether that helps.
 
Ok, well then I would wonder why didn't I get this pain for the last 3 months that I was doing the 3x5.

Could it be the olympic shoes that I starting using recently? Maybe they let me go deeper, so then now I'm using more of my muscles (calf ones)...and now they're paying for it?

what kinds of stretches are good for calves?

thanks for the reply though man :D
 
As I said, they're unused to what your hitting them with. If you've just added in Oly shoes, that fits the bill since it will move stresses compared with not using them. The depth isn't the main factor here. Google for calf stretches.
 
awesome! thanks a lot blut wump. I'm going to try the stretches first then if that doesn't work then decrease the workload.

The reason I say this is because I just started working up to my old PR's and I'm only squatting 100lbs including the bar right now....do you think I should decrease even though I'm only doing that much? (which is about half of what I can actually do)
 
I'd expect you to be able to handle a 50% load without hassles. Try the stretches and you could also experiment with variations of foot spacing and degree of foot-flare in your stance. The angle you plant your feet at can have an effect on the stresses in the legs and hips.

You might also need to skip a session or have a session without the shoes to give the calves a breather to allow them to recover. They should acclimatize to the changes fairly quickly. You could also try massaging them with Bengay, Tiger Balm or similar prior to a workout.
 
so thanks to blut wump recommending calf stretches I stumbled unto a cycling site where some people were complaining about calf pain.

I'm pretty damn sure all the biking that I've been doing lately is causing my calf muscles to tighten and I havn't been stretching at all. Where as before I didn't do any biking whatsoever and that's why I didn't have as many problems.

what do you think? sound plausible or what?
 
Unless you are just one the most limber people ever I don't think you can go too low on squats.

Perp
 
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